Typically a person has to take off her glasses to apply eye drops or apply make-up to her face, especially to put on eye shadow and to improve her eyelashes. But, with her glasses off, she might have difficulty clearly seeing her face in a mirror to apply the eye drops or the make-up, irrespective of whether she is far-sighted or very near-sighted. To solve this problem, a great variety of cosmetic or make-up glasses have been proposed.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,495,898 is representative is representative of several prior art concepts for facilitating for an eyeglass wearer to apply make-up. The disclosed eyeglasses comprise a body member, to which a pair of temple members is attached. The body portion is supported either against the wearer's forehead or via a pair of legs against the sides of the bridge of her nose. A lens is mounted in a vertical holder that is mounted to be slidable along the length of the body member, so that the lens can be shifted from a position in front of one eye to another position in front of the other eye. In this way obstructing portions of the eyeglasses are minimized (compared to traditional glasses) that facilitates an application of make-up around one eye, while it is possible to see perfectly with the other eye.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,294 discloses make-up glasses having the body member located quite a distance below the eyes and two lenses pivotally attached to the body member, so that each lens can be turned down to facilitate the application of make-up around the eye. A similar solution is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,135,593, where the two pivotable lenses are magnifying glasses. By making the temple members long and using large fixed lenses as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 7,101,038, the body member may be placed almost at the tip of the nose, whereby there is enough space between each eye and the associated fixed lens to permit make-up around the eye. Two other suggestions using long curved temple members and fixed lenses are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,010,215 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,439,718. Here a long support leg extends from the middle portion of the body member to the bridge of the nose to create sufficient space between the fixed lenses and the eyes to permit make-up around the eyes.
Another type of make-up glasses is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,880,302 and 5,561,481. Here a single lens is pivotally attached to a bridge piece of the body member. In '302, the single lens is mounted on a vertical pivot axis and can be turned aside horizontally from one eye to the other. In '481, the single lens is mounted on a horizontal pivot axis and can be swung vertically from one eye to the other, cf. also U.S. Pat. No. Des. 304,950.
A variation of the latter concept is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,746,116 and 6,761,450, both of which relate to combination reading and make-up glasses. The single lens is divided horizontally into two identical halves, which are pivotable independently of each other. When both halves are located in front of one eye, the other eye is available for make-up, and when each of the two halves is locate in front of its associated eye, the glasses work as reading glasses.
Still another type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,405,213. Basically these glasses are ordinary glasses usually worn by the person. Both of the two lenses are mounted in a frame, and each frame is slidably connected to the bridge piece of the eyeglasses, so that each lens can be pushed down to apply make-up around the eye. When the make-up is finished, the eyeglasses may be worn normally.
All of these solutions to the problem of making space available between an eyeglass lens and the eye for the application of make-up around the eye suffer from obstructing temple members.